Only, halfway there, I ran into the guys—all three of them. I held onto Maddox’s hand a little bit firmer and stopped in my tracks, unsure what to do next. Maddox knew. He waved and smiled bright, recognizing them as wolves.
“Hey, Romi, we didn’t expect to see you here,” James said.
“Yeah, we had to pay some bills, and then Maddox and I have another errand to run.” I didn’t want to say it was at the coffee shop. Didn’t want them to think I was inviting them, because I wasn’t. This was my special time with my son. Even if I had wanted to spend time with them, I still wasn’t quite sure about that.
“Oh, we have plans.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “We were kind of thinking of taking you to lunch.”
The answer should have been an immediate no. Instead, I said, “Probably not today,” which, of course, opened the door for them to ask me if I wanted to go on a date with them.
“Depending upon when it is, I might not have a babysitter.” I still was sucking at saying no, but when they were there in front of me, their eyes so kind, their smiles so sweet, their posture so submissive, while at the same time showing their strength, that word just didn’t come out.
“Is this your son?” James asked.
“Oh—sorry—this is Maddox.” All three of them squatted down and introduced themselves, making sure they were eye level, giving him the respect he deserved. There was no way they didn’t see his hearing aids. They definitely stood out.
“Maddox, do you want to go to dinner with us or your mom?” Seth asked, and then looked up at me, eyes filled with panic. “I should have asked you.”
And he was right. He should have. But the fact that an alpha was there, catching a mistake and then apologizing and trying to fix it, had me accepting immediately.
“You’re good. What do you say, Maddox? Do you want to go to eat?”
His response was to fist-bump each of them. He might not speak as much as children his age, but he always made it known what he needed.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“He’s a part of you. Of course we don’t mind.” He spoke for the three of them.
We chatted for a couple more minutes, and then they left—Maddox and I going in to get our special mother-son treat at the coffee shop. More than once, I itched to grab the phone to cancel with them. My life was on track. I didn’t need to complicate it.
But that plan was thwarted when my phone buzzed and I looked down to see a short video of Heath and James signing to a wolf pup—my guess was that it was taken by Seth. The caption of the text:screw it.
One text. One date. A date. I didn’t need to be reading so much into it.
Chapter Eight
Heath
Our date had parameters. Honestly, I was glad. Our omega knew what she wanted and what her boundaries were.
Not more than an hour away from town.
She was bringing her son with her.
There was no movie theater in town and even if there were, that wouldn’t give us time to talk to her, and little ones, from what I knew of them, would only pay attention to 1 percent of the movie. Especially a shifter cub. They had the most wiggles of them all.
At least that’s what my mother said to all of my brothers and me.
“I’m nervous. I can’t remember the last time I was nervous about seeing a female.” James paced the living room. He’d been prepped and ready for the last hour and now was bugging the fuck out of us.
He wasn’t the only one nervous, but saying it out loud did none of us any good.
“Well, knock it off,” Seth barked. “It’s not making anything easier for us.”
We’d all pitched in for the meal. More than seeing Romi, I was anxious about what I’d made , but my wolf wanted to participate. He wanted her to eat something from our hands, even though none of us were sure how it tasted or if she would like it.
I was also wondering about her son. Romi mentioned that he was hearing impaired, but that was it. We’d gone online to find out all the information we could. The last thing we wanted was to offend him or Romi. I’d never been around ashifter who was hard of hearing, but we wanted to learn how to accommodate him and her the best we could.
If Romi accepted us as her pack, which I wished she would, then that would mean accepting her son as well.
